Within two days, all of you have helped us launch! Now we are onto stretch goals.
DiAmorte Music: Unlocked!
You'll notice several musical themes surrounding the Black Ballad. DiAmorte and Storytellers Forge have been working side-by-side to ensure the full metal album releases at the same time in late 2023 when we hope to be delivering physical books. The orchestral soundtrack is already written and composed. It's now in the hands of Michael Romero from Symphony X for mastering (or performing music wizardry). What unlocking this stretch goal did for us, is allow Storytellers Forge to help support the musicians for their talent and gain the ability to distribute the soundtrack in ways that are friendly for us tabletop gamers.
Dark Star Records has been a huge supporter of this endeavor, and they will now be equipping themselves to engage with Sony Entertainment to lift the fingerprinting software that (as far as I'm aware) - is functionally Skynet in music form. BUT! Here is an amazing sample of the music mixed with our story narration.
Find a spot to sit for 8 minutes and put on some headphones. Enjoy the tale!
New Domains! Wish and Envy!
These domains will bring the total domains for The Black Ballad up to 4. We dive heavily into the lore around deities and domains, providing theory crafting on how gods gain their energies and the consequences (good or bad) of that interplay. It was honestly one of my favorite chapters to write so far.
The domains of Wish and Envy stand in opposition to each other. Gods who seek to grant their followers their desires for advancement, such as Prometheus... or even divine entities who simply wish to see mortals self-actualize might be drawn to the Wish domain. Allowing their Clerics to tap into the strings of fate itself to manifest and alter reality. Envy, however, is poison. Not all domains are positive, and some gods have been scorned by their brethren and their followers take up a scorched earth crusade to deny others what they themselves were denied. The Envy domain will grant clerics offensive and destructive powers that often spread beyond their own control. For if they can't have something... nobody will. These domains are being written to inspire dynamic and tragic characters for play and inspire storytellers to create entire factions with these motivations.
What's Next?
The next stretch goal is contributor raises. Everyone working on this project needs a little boost at times, and we couldn't make this book without them. There is a lot of art left to be done and several chapters to finish, and with this raise, we can get even better art... and make sure that they earn more to get ahead in life. Which is important.
We can't create when stressed to the nines over life itself.
Honestly, this next stretch goal at $88,000 is super important to Storytellers Forge, and we feel it's a worthy cause.
